Building My 1st PC - Are These Sensible Choices?

Sczee

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Nov 25, 2006
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I'm thinking of building a PC in the next couple of months and came up with the following components:

CPU - Intel Core 2 Due E6600
Motherboard - Asus P5B Deluxe
Memory - 2GB Corsair XMS TWIN2X2048-5400C4 DDR2-667
Hard Drive 1 - Seagate Barracuda 7200.1 ES 400GB
Hard Drive 2 - Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 320GB (I already have it)
Graphics Card - ATI X1950 Pro 256MB DDR3
Sound Card - Creative Audigy2 ZS PCI
Optical Drive - Sony DRU820A (+- DL writer)
Power Supply - ThermalTake ToughPower W0117 ATX 750W
Case - Gigabyte Poseidon Mid ATX, Black
Monitor - ViewSonic VX922 19"
Keyboard - Logitech Media Elite (I already have it)
Mouse - Logitech MediaPlay Wireless (I already have it)
Speakers - Logitech Z-4 2.1

The total price including the parts I already have is ~$4000 New Zealand dollars (I live in New Zealand) with all the parts from this site: http://www.tastech.co.nz/

What I want to know is if all of these parts are compatible with each other and if they are sensible choices. This is about my maximum budget but I'm willing to spend less on some parts and more on other etc.

The ATI X1950 Pro is a placeholder until midrange DX10 cards come out (and down in price).

My main concerns are:
- Is the sound card necessary and if so is this a good choice and will it work fine with the speakers (I assume it will but just making sure)
- Is the motherboard excessive? (I will probably OC a bit but I have never done it before so I doubt I will do it a lot). Also will the motherboard be compatible with new DX10 cards in the future? (maybe a difficult question)
- Is the DVD-Writer a waste of money? The one I have at the moment (in my laptop) really annoys me because if I write a DVD (video) with it there are quite often errors which DVD players can't get past. So I want a good drive but is this too much?
- Is the power supply too big/any good? For the current set-up its overkill but if I get a better graphics card (possibly dual card setup) then I would need that much power correct?
- The case comes with 2 fans. Will I need to buy any extra ones? As I said I'm not planning to heavily OC.

I will mostly be using the computer for gaming although I tend to try lots of different things (video editing etc.).

Thanks for any replies.
 

apt403

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Oct 14, 2006
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- Is the sound card necessary and if so is this a good choice and will it work fine with the speakers (I assume it will but just making sure)

unless you have a really good pair of speakers a sound card isnt nessary, onboard is fine.

- Is the motherboard excessive? (I will probably OC a bit but I have never done it before so I doubt I will do it a lot). Also will the motherboard be compatible with new DX10 cards in the future? (maybe a difficult question)

nah, thats great board, stick with it. there no reason that dx10 cards wouldnt work, and ive seen people using x10 cards with that board.

- Is the DVD-Writer a waste of money? The one I have at the moment (in my laptop) really annoys me because if I write a DVD (video) with it there are quite often errors which DVD players can't get past. So I want a good drive but is this too much?

dvd burners are always nice to have, if you can afford it, get it.

- Is the power supply too big/any good? For the current set-up its overkill but if I get a better graphics card (possibly SLI) then I would need that much power correct?

yeah, stick with that psu, you can never have enough power.
 

yas

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I think your rig looks fine. The PSU is overkill but as you said if you plan on using two gfx cards then yuo will need it. Still you would be fine with 650w if you wanted to lower the price a bit. For the fans as long as the temperatures are reasonable then you shouldnt have to worry. You may want to install more fans but iyou dont have to.
 

Sczee

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I think your rig looks fine. The PSU is overkill but as you said if you plan on using two gfx cards then yuo will need it. Still you would be fine with 650w if you wanted to lower the price a bit. For the fans as long as the temperatures are reasonable then you shouldnt have to worry. You may want to install more fans but iyou dont have to.

Ok. The thing is the 750W PSU comes with cable management where as the 650W one doesn't. And I would only save $35 (NZD, about $20 USD), so I'll stick with the 750W PSU.

unless you have a really good pair of speakers a sound card isnt nessary, onboard is fine.

Ok cool that'll save me $140.